The Rest of God

Jesus knew how to rest. He knew exactly how to rest. He was able to sleep in the boat while the storm raged and his disciples panicked. He unerringly discerned what to do about the Sabbath, how to honour it without allowing it to be religious. He knew how to balance the strenuous work of His ministry against the rest in the Father which fuelled the work.

He was able to rest, well ... excellently, because He had an excellent knowledge of the Father. He knew who the Father was and what He was doing, and from that knowledge came a deep, deep trust.

I think if I knew God the way Jesus knew God I would be able to rest, too. It would be easy because I would know how much more real the power of God is than anything that looks powerful here. I would know the utter goodness of God’s motives and plans and the absolute certainty of their happening. I would know that nothing here is able to stand against what God, in love, has purposed for me.

How do I learn all that? How do I get to know God like Jesus did? I think the first step is simple. I remind myself that Jesus is not just a historical figure, but a living person. I remind myself that He has said He will live in me if I stay in Him, and I merely ask Him, “Lord, teach me what You know about the Father, so that I can rest in Him the same way that You did while You were here. I want to have the same thoughts about God that You have, so that I can live as You did.”

The next step is simple, too: do it again. In fact, keep asking Him until He shows me what to do next. Then do it. Then ask again.

I think that’s how to stay in Jesus: ask, listen, act, then ask again. I suspect that’s how He stayed in God, but He did it so constantly that it became not a series of steps but a state of being: a way of living that He wants to share with us.

And I think that as we ask for and learn about this way of living, we will enter the rest of God, from which comes all good things.